


When You're A Stranger

by roblingt



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Community: writerinadrawer, WriterInADrawer 4.04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-30
Updated: 2010-06-30
Packaged: 2017-10-10 08:08:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/97515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roblingt/pseuds/roblingt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: There's No Place Like Roam... The team needs a new Headquarters. The Hub has been destroyed OR made uninhabitable for at least a month. Where does the Torchwood Team shack up now?<br/>Added Element: 3 of 6 colors of the rainbow (red, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple)<br/>Word Count: 500</p>
            </blockquote>





	When You're A Stranger

Jack's idea of a team-building holiday whilst the backup pumps slowly drained half of Cardiff Bay out of what was left of the Hub's main electrical plant was to drag them across half the length of Britain to visit a very strange man. "Six of you now, eh? You're a platoon compared to old Archie."

Jack chuckled. "Don't mind Rhys, he's just an interested bystander. Doesn't have a high enough security clearance to get into the _good_ parties."

"Always were one to take in the strays, Jack. But Archie does love that about you."

Had Archie Campbell just winked at Gwen's husband? Rhys bristled. "Oi, it's none of that, aye? Didn't come all the bloody way up here to put up with _this_ rubbish —"

Gwen took his arm and gave Archie a smile. "Sorry, yeah, long drive, is there somewhere we could...?"

Torchwood Two's lone agent directed them to find a red bedroom, with a warning not to be late to tea. Gwen dragged Rhys up the creaky stairs, ignoring the dunes of dirty teacups everywhere and the _tell me_ you_ saw that too_ looks from Owen and Tosh as the two went off to turn her quarters into a temporary base of technical operations. Gwen closed the bedroom door and waited for Rhys to start: "He was wearing a skirt. And I _don't_ mean a kilt either!"

Gwen had rather fancied that Chanel suit herself, but it didn't seem to be the moment to get into that. Yellow wasn't her colour, anyway. "He's only got the one head and he's not trying to eat us. Wash up for tea, yeah?"

...If tea this presentation of Archie's could be _called_, unless one were the Mad Hatter? And poor Rhys had gone and got himself trapped between their host and Torchwood Three's own March Hare at the other end of a very long table, listening to their war-stories with the occasional _get me out of here, love_ look to his wife. "...And then _he_ hits it with the bag!" Jack crowed.

"Archie's favourite Balenciaga clutch, that was," Archie concluded with a mournful look. "Zip's never been the same."

"I find myself drawn more and more to the conclusion that I've actually _been_ in hell all along," Owen muttered.

"Come on, just because he's wearing a ballgown —"

"If it's meant to be performance art he's certainly thrown himself into it." Tosh poked at her... meal. (There was something that _had once_ been pasta on her own plate somewhere, Gwen thought...)

"Purple taffeta before seven is definitely a statement," Ianto remarked.

"Or with a ginger bloody _beard_." Owen went back to glumly twiddling his spoon.

Ah, well, no help for any of it really. Time enough whilst the builders went at it back in Cardiff to work out what Archie might have on his mind, and more than enough Torchwood work to occupy them here for at least a month. Why, just the neglected paperwork... and all that bloody washing-up.


End file.
